Fastest single core CPU?

[porina]

This might seem an odd question in 2020 but I randomly decided I wanted to have another look at doing some benchmarks for hwbot. To kinda level the playing field somewhat, rankings are listed per-core. I have 2, 4, 6, 8 covered quite well. 3 is probably limited to the AMD X3 I'm undecided if I'll try to get one to play with. 5 apparently exists! Oh, disabling cores doesn't count. It has to be as sold. Having HT is ok, only real cores are counted.

 

So back to the question, what's the fastest single core CPU? Now, I could just look at existing submissions, but on the assumption that 1 core isn't particularly sexy I'm not sure people would go back with modern CPUs to retry. If you can call single core CPUs modern.

 

So far in my house I've tried two CPUs. One is my first laptop I bought for myself, with a Pentium M 1.5 GHz CPU. That does y-cruncher 25m is in about 3 minutes. The fastest submission on hwbot is 15 seconds. That's out. Currently I'm trying a Celeron 440 I bought for another use, but never used. Running stock at 2 GHz it is turning in a result in about 50 seconds. Better, but still a long way to go. Even if I double the clock by overclocking, which I don't have a suitable mobo for, 25 seconds is still some way off. The architecture is still a bit too old.

 

I do have a mobo/CPU I pulled out of a server which I've never run before. It apparently has an unspecified Opteron running at 2.4 GHz, but I have no idea what it is. That's next on the to do list I suppose...

[Mateyyy]

I think Pentium 4 were the last single-core CPUs to come out from Intel, as Pentium D were exclusively dual-core (might be wrong on that though), so probably a heavily overclocked P4? They used to have some really high clocks out of the box too iirc.

Can't really remember what AMD had for this segment back in the day though.

[Mister Woof]

The last single core CPUs i had were

 

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (1.8ghz)

AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (2.0ghz)

AMD Athlon 1000

Pentium III 450

 

so my experience isn't that expensive. Probably the fastest out of that bunch was the AMD Athlon 64 3000+.

 

The 2400+ scored 361 vs the 3000+ at 473

[porina]

2 minutes ago, Mateyyy said:

I think Pentium 4 were the last single-core CPUs to come out from Intel, as Pentium D were exclusively dual-core (might be wrong on that though), so probably a heavily overclocked P4?

I did fire up a Pentium 4 era box today, but that had to be aborted as it was a Pentium D dual core.

 

Intel certainly made newer single core CPUs than P4 era. The Celeron 440 I'm running at the moment is Core 2 era. I think they made more after that, but that's what I'm struggling to identify. I have a 1c2t Atom nettop I might try later, but I strongly doubt it will be faster than the Celeron 440.

 

2 minutes ago, Mister Woof said:

AMD Athlon 64 3000+ (1.8ghz)

AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (2.0ghz)

I have an X2, but as its name implies that's dual core too.

 

I'm looking to set up the server mobo now and see what it has. All I know for now is it has some kind of Opteron at 2.4 GHz. No idea on configuration beyond that.

[Mateyyy]

5 minutes ago, porina said:

I did fire up a Pentium 4 era box today, but that had to be aborted as it was a Pentium D dual core.

 

Intel certainly made newer single core CPUs than P4 era. The Celeron 440 I'm running at the moment is Core 2 era. I think they made more after that, but that's what I'm struggling to identify. I have a 1c2t Atom nettop I might try later, but I strongly doubt it will be faster than the Celeron 440.

Yeah those Atoms were slow, I doubt it'll be faster than the 440.

[mariushm]

Maybe look into Turion 64 ?  They were around 2005, up to 2.4 ghz, 90nm arch. : Turion 64 - AMD - WikiChip

 

Socket 754 versions are probably hard to find, socket S1 are not as rare.. here's for example the 2.2 ghz version: https://www.ebay.com/itm/AMD-Mobile-Turion-64-MK-38-2-2GHz-512K-s1-LP-TMDMK38HAX4CM/131568328867

[jaslion]

Amd made a sempron 140 a single core cpu for the am3 platform. There are also the intel core solo cpu's that exist.

[Guest]

Sandy bridge celeron socket 1155

Or

Amd sempron 150.

 

Pretty sure the Celeron is faster, but these 2 processors are probably the fastest released.

 

 

[porina]

54 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Sandy bridge celeron socket 1155

Or

Amd sempron 150.

 

Pretty sure the Celeron is faster, but these 2 processors are probably the fastest released.

Looking at 1 core runs of y-cruncher on hwbot, it looks like the Sempron overclocked to 4 GHz+ is faster than the not very overclockable Celeron G460/470, presumably as the latter is multiplier locked and there's not much headroom for bus OC. The fastest listed result is on an ancient Celeron, so I have to assume the user mis-selected the model.

 

Was kinda hoping there's something more newer than these.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, porina said:

Looking at 1 core runs of y-cruncher on hwbot, it looks like the Sempron overclocked to 4 GHz+ is faster than the not very overclockable Celeron G460/470, presumably as the latter is multiplier locked and there's not much headroom for bus OC. The fastest listed result is on an ancient Celeron, so I have to assume the user mis-selected the model.

 

Was kinda hoping there's something more newer than these.

Nah. Single core processors are way in the past.  

Before even on AM2, socket 939 you could have a dual core Opteron 165 for example. That's how far back dual cores go.

 

If I'm not mistaken, some of those Semprons on the AM2/AM3 platform can be unlocked as well.

[porina]

6 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Nah. Single core processors are way in the past.

I guess, but dual cores hung around.

 

Just got win7 onto the server board. The CPU-Z reports the mystery CPU as an Athlon 3800+ AM2 90nm, which would point towards Orleans core from 2007. I might regret letting Windows Update run, but internet doesn't work unless I do something from it presumably as security certs are too out of date from the DVD I have. The joys of running older systems. No USB boot support. I even had to run the SSD with SATA in IDE mode as I can't find a driver for it.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, porina said:

I guess, but dual cores hung around.

 

Just got win7 onto the server board. The CPU-Z reports the mystery CPU as an Athlon 3800+ AM2 90nm, which would point towards Orleans core from 2007. I might regret letting Windows Update run, but internet doesn't work unless I do something from it presumably as security certs are too out of date from the DVD I have. The joys of running older systems. No USB boot support. I even had to run the SSD with SATA in IDE mode as I can't find a driver for it.

Can you list the specs of the rig please?? 

 

[Mister Woof]

Kind of interesting from an evolutionary standpoint.

 

For most of my youth, single core CPUs were the norm and nobody ever considered multi-core CPUs in the consumer market.

 

My first PC was a Tandy 286. I want to say in was in the mid 80s or so when we had it.

 

From the late 70s through around 2005 with Pentium D and AMD 64x2 being the first mainstream dual core CPUs.

 

That's 35+ years of consumer single core CPUs.

 

And from 2005 to 2020, just 15 years, we went from 2 cores being the top-end of the mainstream market to 16.

 

35 for 1 to 2.

Just 2 from 2 to 4

And the rest you all know

[porina]

1 hour ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Can you list the specs of the rig please?? 

Mobo: Tyan Tomcat S3950 H1000S

CPU: Athlon 3800+ AM2 90nm with what looks like a stock AMD cooler of the era

Ram: 4x1GB DDR2 various brands. I don't have anything higher density  

Storage: random mSATA SSD in SATA adapter

GPU: whatever is included on mobo. I found the driver but not installed it yet.

 

I have since seen some more drivers for the mobo but I only picked up the GPU and bios, the latest is a couple years newer than the one installed. I wont put it on yet but kept in reserve.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, porina said:

Mobo: Tyan Tomcat S3950 H1000S

CPU: Athlon 3800+ AM2 90nm with what looks like a stock AMD cooler of the era

Ram: 4x1GB DDR2 various brands. I don't have anything higher density  

Storage: random mSATA SSD in SATA adapter

GPU: whatever is included on mobo. I found the driver but not installed it yet.

 

I have since seen some more drivers for the mobo but I only picked up the GPU and bios, the latest is a couple years newer than the one installed. I wont put it on yet but kept in reserve.

That Cpu was upgraded from something else. It does not exist on the support list. So that's kinda cool.

 

You can run an Opteron 1218 in that rig. Dual core 2.6ghz ya know. I think I saw one on ebay just moments ago for under 10 dollars.

[porina]

45 minutes ago, ShrimpBrime said:

That Cpu was upgraded from something else. It does not exist on the support list. So that's kinda cool.

I guess that's also why it is listed as an unknown Opteron by the bios.

 

Quote

You can run an Opteron 1218 in that rig. Dual core 2.6ghz ya know. I think I saw one on ebay just moments ago for under 10 dollars.

I'm not sure I'll run this for anything other than as a play thing for now. Just got Chrome on it. It hurts... so slow...

 

GPU drivers wont install. I'm pretty sure it listed Win7 on the download page, but the driver package seems to run out of steam around XP.

 

Edit: I think I was a bit optimistic calling it a GPU. It is a minimal 2D card from CRT era. The generic Windows drivers already get me everything it can do. I also worked out why the drivers weren't installing. The file I got from the link on Tyan's website is not the one listed on the download page. The Win7-64 one doesn't seem to exist on their download server, and I was unable to locate an equivalent elsewhere.

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, porina said:

I guess that's also why it is listed as an unknown Opteron by the bios.

 

I'm not sure I'll run this for anything other than as a play thing for now. Just got Chrome on it. It hurts... so slow...

 

GPU drivers wont install. I'm pretty sure it listed Win7 on the download page, but the driver package seems to run out of steam around XP.

 

Edit: I think I was a bit optimistic calling it a GPU. It is a minimal 2D card from CRT era. The generic Windows drivers already get me everything it can do. I also worked out why the drivers weren't installing. The file I got from the link on Tyan's website is not the one listed on the download page. The Win7-64 one doesn't seem to exist on their download server, and I was unable to locate an equivalent elsewhere.

haha yea the onboard is lucky to even produce 2D XD

Pretty much it. Not even anything there to really have fun with.

 

[porina]

3 hours ago, ShrimpBrime said:

Pretty much it. Not even anything there to really have fun with.

It's slower than the stock Celeron 440, which remains the best single core CPU I have on hand at the moment even without overclocking.

 

I pulled the Tyan out of a rackmount server which I wanted for the multiple 3.5" bays. That's got a Sandy Bridge Xeon dropped in it now although I'm too cheap to actually put HDs in it yet, while I decide what to go for. I'm half debating going for some y-cruncher records (beyond hwbot), but it starts to get spendy fast if I'm to have any realistic chance. Basically storage speed becomes the primary limit.

 

Anyway, I'll check out power consumption in more detail later. As a server board, wondering if I might have some server like use for it. Actually get an Opteron and some ECC. I also got some kinda raid card with it but I've not looked at it in detail.

[Guest]

It would make a halfway decent file server I think. Nothing wrong with that. I had one similar to it.

 

The last server setup I traded some hardwares for with one of my team captains. It was a K8NDRE motherboard. I had Pin modded some voltage (1.550v) to get a little frequency from the chips I was running. Pretty fun platform, there's other boards that OC too, not just that one. Had a bit of fun running dual waterblocks. Even benched the onboard Rage Graphics too! Saved a couple of ECC sticks just in case I get back into that server platform fun again some day. 

 

Not a big fan of y -cruncher. I like WPrime, PiMod kicks my butt though. XD